The Tar Heels two losses and their near loss to FSU, were their three worst offensive games of the season and not surprisingly, they struggled in all three. They were also poor defensively, particularly in the BC game, but at other times they have been bad on defense and have still won easily, Saturday for example and against Notre Dame. Why? Because they were unstoppable on offense.

Now, for the national standing. There is way too much hype!!! I don’t care if Duke is ranked higher than the Heels and I don’t care if the Heels are ranked highter than Duke. All I am worried about is how well Carolina plays from game to game. People get so hung up about who’s where in the standings. Let’s take one game at a time and worry about how our heels are playing. To me, the standing don’t make a hill of beans until March. That’s when the fun starts!!!! Go Heels!!!!!!!!

The media leaped on defense as the simple explanation for what was happening since Russell was great at defense and Chamberlain, West and Baylor were great at offense.

In reality, things were a lot more complicated. But what does stand out from my study of the NBA standings is that adjusted point differential or SRS, seems to be the greatest predictor of success in the NBA play-offs. Because, as in college ball, NBA teams have not played equal schedules, the team records are often misleading.

For example, the 1969 Lakers, who finished 55-27, are often chided for losing to the 48-34 Celtics, who only finished in fourth place in the East. But guess what? Due to statistical anomalies, Boston essentially tied for first in the NBA that year in SRS, finishing at 5.38, while L.A., which won seven games more, only had an SRS of 3.84. Boston won in seven games.

Celtic fans try to have it both ways with the Celtic teams of the late 50′s and 60′s. They try to say that they were both the best teams of all time, and also that they were incredibly clutch.

I would say that it is much more true to say that they were the best teams of that period by far, and that they managed to avoid being upset by inferior teams, although often just by the skin of their teeth.

Out of the 13 years Bill Russell was with the Celtics, the Celtics had the best SRS in the league 11 times(including 1969 which was essentially a tie with the Knicks), and guess how many championships they won? Yes, 11, but many times they were extended to seven games by teams that finished far behind them during the regular season.

If there is a critique to be made of those Philadelphia teams with Wilt and those Laker teams with Baylor and West, and later with Chamberlain, it is not that they lost to Boston in the play-offs. That was the expected outcome. It would be why couldn’t these teams match Boston in the regular season.

As regards Wilt Chamberlain, he played on four teams that led the league in adjusting scoring differential, in 1967, 1968, 1972 and 1973. Thus, Chamberlain played on four teams that would be deemed the play-off favorites and he ended up winning twice, in 1967 and 1972, although the 1972 Knicks were only a couple of points behind the Lakers during the regular season.

Adjusted point differential (SRS) is simply a team’s offensive average minus its defensive average, with an adjustment upward or downward based upon schedule strength. Among power ratings in basketball, this is basically what Sagarin in USA Today calls “pure points” adjusted for schedule strength and I would beat that if we look, we will generally find that teams that win the NCAA title generally have excellent point differentials. Sagarin indicates that pure points is not politically correct but does the best job of predicting success.

Generally, in the NBA, an SRS of over 8 points is outstanding and will almost always result in that team winning the title. As far as I can discern, no team has ever led the league in SRS at an average of 9 points or more, without winning the title. This select group includes the 1971 Jabbar/Robertson Bucks, the 1972 Chamberlain, Goodrich, West Lakers, the 1986 Walton/Bird Celtics and three different Jordan-led Bull teams.

Because expansion, injuries and improvement throughout a season can affect team success, SRS is not the final arbiter of greatness, but it certainly is highly correlated.

Only three teams have exceeded 11.5 points, the 1971 Bucks, the 1972 Lakers and the 1996 Jordan/Rodman Bulls, and all three won 66 games or more during the regular season and went through the play-offs at a clip of .800 or above.

The 1972 Lakers, who went 69-13 in the regular season had to play the almost equally worthy Bucks that year in the Western Finals. The Bucks went 63-19 and had an SRS of 10.70, which is one of the five highest of all time, but went down 4 games to 2 versus the Lakers.

So maybe the defense versus offense paradigm is not especially illuminating. There have been times this year where Carolina had trouble getting stops, like Saturday in Raleigh. There have been other times where Carolina had trouble buying a basket, like against Wake Forest. Comparing defense and offense may be useful for coaches in making team adjustments or for discovering why a particular game was won or lost, but it may not be particularly informative in terms of telling us which team is better, when an “offensive” oriented team faces a “defensive” oriented team.

The very next caller said that he thought Ed should start ahead of Deon. Coach ripped the guy’s head off.

Irony?

THF is right. I was just looking at the schedule from here on out. Should have made that more clear. Sorry.

Several times on Saturday I was saying to myself, “Don’t take that shot, Tyler,” in reference to the type of shot that he used to usually make and that seemed not to fall this year. Saturday, they were going in, from mid-range and even one three. That has to make a huge difference in opening up the floor.

I do notice that our defensive rating has started to go down, strangely during a period where we have mostly played better. Maybe it is best not to worry about it. I think this team needs to play adequate defense and excellent offense to win. I don’t think they can win on defense alone, unless Lawson, Ellington and Thompson really take it to the next level.

THF, is there any way over on the side, for you to show more of the recent comments? There have been a lot of interesting ones lately but the page only shows the most recent five.